1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle interior light system to be mounted on the interior roof of a vehicle, and particularly to a vehicle interior light system capable of turning an interior lamp on and off when the tip of a finger or the like approaches a touch sensor provided on a lens.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typical known vehicle interior light systems have a slide switch or a push-button switch on an enclosure so that a lamp inside the light system can be turned on and off by sliding the slide switch or pressing the push-button switch. Since such a vehicle interior light system has a switch on the enclosure, the size of a lens used in the light system is small relative to the size of the enclosure. This is disadvantageous in that the illuminated area is small.
To solve such a problem, the present applicant developed an interior light system for vehicles as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-172977. This interior light system has a lens which is rotatably attached to an enclosure of an interior lamp such that pressing the lens allows an internal push-button switch to be turned on and off, thereby turning the interior lamp on and off. In this case, since the lens itself serves as a control member for controlling the push-button switch, the lens can be arranged to cover the entire opening of the enclosure. This not only increases the size of the lens and thus increases the brightness of illumination, but also contributes to the improved design of the interior light system.
In the interior light system for vehicles described above, it is possible that the internal push-button switch interferes with the transmission of light near the light source, blocks the light from uniformly illuminating the entire surface of the lens, and thus lowers the overall brightness of illumination. Moreover, since the interior light system has a mechanism that allows the lens to rotate, the service life of the system may be shortened due to wear resulting from the rotation of the lens.